


The Softest Candor

by VoluptuousPanic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Absolute Candor, Handjobs and Boy Smells, Healing on Nepenthe, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, River Vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:42:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26197327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoluptuousPanic/pseuds/VoluptuousPanic
Summary: Not my usual Hugh or Elnor, but adjacent, borne of a discussion withKennel_Boyandiwritesometimesregarding Elnor's and Hugh's relative innocence...or not. This is a less innocent Elnor, and a more jaded Hugh, healing on Nepenthe, the way things should have been.Also resurrectinga fandom fave alien trope from Foremothers Leslie Fish and Jenna Sinclair. If Vulcans have them, Rihannsu do too! Huzzah!
Relationships: Elnor & Hugh | Third of Five, Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five
Comments: 20
Kudos: 35





	The Softest Candor

Elnor watches, relief and a strange calm filling him as Soji and Kestra rise from their place on the river’s sandy edge, gathering their towels and slipping away through the cattails into the shadows beneath the trees that lined the way back. The girls had been there for a bit, long enough to enjoy the last streak of red sunset through the trees and the first moments of starlight in the black sky after the small milky moon rose over the jagged peaks to the north. Elnor and Hugh were keeping to themselves on the far side of the pier, in the the long shadows cast by the bench and canopy in the dying light, interrupted in their impromptu skinny-dip for the second night in a row. The sun-warmed water of the river bend is murky and green, but the lazy current through the center is clear, deep, and cold, and feels heavier and more slippery to the touch than water in the few silty, mineral laden pools that Elnor has swum in on Vashti. Hugh calls the water “soft.” Soft is the word that Elnor uses to describe his feelings about being here alone, together in the water with Hugh, standing on sand and smooth stones furred with green algae.

Elnor hauls himself up out of the water and onto the towels purloined from the outdoor shower to line the planks of the pier. Hugh follows, and Elnor steals a look, watching the way Hugh’s arms and shoulders flex in the pale moonlight as he pushes up, sliding out of the water. Their naked bodies steam in the cool night air and gooseflesh pebbles skin. Except the places they touch, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip. Elnor knows no shame in nakedness, but is still surprised at Hugh’s freedom, his almost casual nudity. “Medical exhibitionist” was the phrase Hugh used the night before when Elnor called him beautiful after they looked at the river, looked at one another, and wordlessly undressed to slip into the water at the end of the pier to share a rough kiss before touching themselves, and then later, each other. There had been little discussion. Elnor feels soft about those things too. After a lifetime of speaking plainly, he finds himself without words.

He feels soft, too, about his bond to Hugh as _qalankhkai_. And about the time they spend together that began as quiet walks through the trees or sitting by the water after dinner. About the way that Hugh listens and lets lets him find his way through too many words and thoughts unprocessed without treating him like a child. How Hugh speaks to him with his own candor from his gentle heart. How Hugh seems in some ways young and vital, and in others older even and more troubled than Picard. How Hugh carries the weight of worlds and his people and lifetimes of grief and anger, yet is the kindest and most tender soul that Elnor has ever met. Hugh is soft, too. His softness is what Elnor protects with his blade and his own body.

And there is a different, rawer kind of soft that Elnor feels about the way Hugh expresses desire as if he has nothing to lose, and how it hits in such a way that Elnor feels free in body and spirit. It is exciting like the ways of so many of the men who came through the settlements on Vashti, but neither furtive nor dangerous. It feels to Elnor like the secrets he shared with Sister Jisit, sweet and safe and sensual, but never certain for they were both _kheis’he._ She had been his first and the the first to know, even before Elnor had experienced excitement or danger with the men who he could meet as they came and went from Central Station. His desire for Hugh is gentle, certain and comfortable. Elnor expects that Hugh, too, knows the pain and confusion of being someone else’s secret or a thing to be used. Absolute Candor has no room for secrets. What is happening now, Elnor feels, simply is what is, a thing that must be accepted as it is. Simpler than a secret. Elnor does not want it to be a secret, but it is private for him and Hugh alone. It is a soft thing though their actions the night before were not soft. 

“Where were we?” Hugh asks with a look that thrills Elnor, a look out of the corners of Hugh’s big, kind eyes that travels over Elnor’s body. It is a look that is honest.

Elnor’s skin prickles again with something that feels electric, different than the tightness of water evaporating from bare skin. He wants to ask if Hugh feels it too, but stops himself from speaking. He is learning, slowly, that one can honor candor without voicing every thought. Elnor exhales a laugh and smiles to himself, feeling his face flush with the heat of knowing that Hugh likes the things he sees in the night. Elnor likes to look at Hugh, too. He looks back with a small touch to Hugh’s knee where a band of black neuropolymer joins skin and sinew in a smooth expanse of tissue that catches the opal moonlight. Elnor feels soft at his fascination with Hugh’s body, how pale flesh merges seamlessly with organic machine, how it feels to touch the places like this one that are neither and both. He traces it with a fingertip and finds it is as warm and yielding as skin. Hugh’s hand touches his and their fingers lace together, palm to palm. This is the hand, Elnor remembers, that Hugh has told him is prosthetic, not real, a synthetic augment to replace the weapon or tool grown or added after assimilation. Elnor squeezes. The warmth and the shapes of bones that are not bones feel as real as his own.“I don’t remember,” Elnor says. It is true. The sun was setting, and they were in the cool water together again, and then were no longer alone. Time had passed. Nothing had happened.

“You have no obligation to me.” Hugh’s voice is gentle, and his thumb slowly moves over Elnor’s in a way that feels tender. Elnor doesn’t know why Hugh says such things. Elnor has every obligation.“I know…last night,” Hugh continues. “I think we both needed it. But we don’t have to again. There’s no need. I have no expectations but I…I enjoy your company.” Hugh sighs. “Very much.”

Elnor looks into the darkness of the water as he answers. “You are not speaking of the obligations of _qalankhkai_.” Elnor is certain of that, just as he is certain these soft feelings aren’t born of any duty.“I enjoy your company, too.” The statement is too simple, but he can think of no more. “Very much,” he adds, as Hugh had.

Elnor squeezes Hugh’s hand again and feels Hugh shift next to him, turning. There is a kiss pressed to the outer curve of Elnor’s shoulder and then Hugh rests his forehead there. Elnor feels something flush golden inside, a fluttering in his belly, and turns too, his cheek at the top of Hugh’s head. He is unsurprised at how natural it feels to slide his other hand to the inside of Hugh’s thigh, fingertips catching at the back of Hugh’s bent knee as Hugh’s free hand comes over his wrist. They remain this way a long while, warm together in the cool night, hands clasped and arms entangled. Elnor does not want to let go. It is almost as if last night’s rough and fervid touches hadn’t happened.

The pale streak of a meteor in the black sky catches Elnor’s eye and he looks up, gently loosing Hugh’s hand to point at its glittering trail through the atmosphere, and at another that follows. “The sky, like everything on Nepenthe, is beautiful, and I am thankful that I have seen it with you,” he says, the words crossing his lips as the thought forms in his head. He scans the sky, the huge, dim curve of the second moon rising over the mountains behind the first, creamy haze of stellar dust, twinkling stars and bright points of other planets. An orbital satellite passes in a lazy arc. Elnor has never seen a sky so dark, let alone one with two moons. Even in the desert on Vashti the planetary defense system lights the atmosphere. Nepenthe’s sky is so beautiful it looks like a holo rendering. Silently, he wonders at the skies the Hugh has seen, but does not ask.

“Make a wish,” Hugh says softly a few moments later when a third meteor glides overhead.

“I do not know what to wish for that is not already here,” Elnor answers. He feels peace and impulsively slides an arm around Hugh’s neck and hears Hugh’s long exhale as their bare bodies fold closer together. Candor dictates that he tell Hugh that he wishes they could go to bed together, something Elnor has never said to anyone for lack of opportunity. With the exception of Jisit and a handful of other encounters, touch and coupling has always been secretive, impulsive, impersonal, never in bed. Too close to see Hugh’s face, Elnor summons courage to yield to tenderness, to touch with the soft feelings that are hot and sweet. Elnor drags his lips over Hugh’s face in soft motions that are barely kisses. He can hear Hugh breathe as their mouths open and come together with gentleness that neither could find the night before. It is slow and deep and Elnor hopes that Hugh feels the same pleasure in the way their lips catch and tongues move. Elnor has seldom been kissed so sweetly and usually prefers not to be kissed. He believes now that Hugh has a great deal more experience than he, with kisses and with intimacy. Candor also dictates that Elnor should ask, but he will not. Instead he tracks his lips over the implants that mark Hugh’s brow and cheekbone and kisses the outer corner of Hugh’s downturned eye. Elnor leans in, pressing his cheek to Hugh’s when Hugh pushes back the weight of his wet hair to caress and then kiss his ear.

“You like this,” Hugh whispers against the pointed shell.

It is a statement more than a question and makes the fuzz on Elnor’s skin rise as if he is cold. But he is not, and the water that cooled their skin is long dried. With the impulsiveness that usually guides him in encounters with other men, Elnor chances a more intimate touch, and slowly, deliberately strokes the flat of his palm down Hugh’s spine. There is a sharp inhale and a long exhale in his ear. Hugh nearly shudders against him as his palm moves over flesh scarred in regular patterns, and remnants of technology that lie flush with smoother expanses of skin. “And you like this,” Elnor answers, feeling a huff of laughter in response. His face pulls into a smile at Hugh’s cheek and he strokes a hand over Hugh’s head. He is happy, and hopes that Hugh is too.

“Last night I learned that you’re not as innocent as you seem,” Hugh says. Another statement, tender and honest, an observation that would feel different coming from a man who was not Hugh. Hugh draws back from the embrace and reaches up, cupping Elnor’s face in his palm.

“No, I am not,” Elnor breathes in response, looking down into Hugh’s placid face. He complies with Hugh’s touch, doing what feels right without thought in the way. The subtle agreement and submission to Hugh’s gentleness feels natural. He meets the challenge of Hugh’s mismatched upward gaze. The words that come to the inside of Elnor’s head that he dare not say concern the futility of resistance. Elnor sees and knows how Hugh negotiates every experience, that needs and feelings are facts, and are approached without shame or obfuscation. It is not so different to Absolute Candor. In this moment Elnor wants nothing more than to meet Hugh’s desire with his own, this time with softness. “What do you want to do?” Elnor asks.

“Whatever feels good. To both of us.”

Hugh’s answer is more than acceptable. Elnor nods and find himself biting his lower lip in a way that feels childish, but he sees Hugh looking back, Hugh’s eyes on his mouth, with a look of want that erases all their differences and the places they come from. Hugh is just a man: small and strong, handsome and gentle, neither young nor old. Elnor cherishes what Hugh is, that Hugh is his charge as _qalankhkai_. But also Elnor simply likes the look of him, and now he knows that mischief and humor that is braided into Hugh’s kindness. The words come again, soft words for soft feelings. “You are beautiful.”

Hugh shakes his head gently, the look of hunger still on his face, along with a half smile. “You are,” Hugh whispers.

Elnor shivers as Hugh pushes his hair back again, to stroke his eyebrows, his jaw, his neck, the bones of his shoulders. Elnor is aware of his body anew when they negotiate their limbs so they sit between one another’s legs. He steals a look down and sees that Hugh is as ready as he, but is distracted by Hugh’s strength when Hugh’s arms come tight around him when their bodies touch and lips meet again. Elnor feels as if he is drowning, but pulled under willingly, surrendering to Hugh’s tender direction that is soft and slow on his skin like the current of the river that flows beneath them. Elnor listens to the sounds of Hugh’s breath, his own, the sighs of pleasure they both make intermittently. He cannot hear the soft and wet motions of their mouths together, but shudders with the accidental grind of teeth when Hugh grips his his hair and changes approach for deeper motion with his tongue.

Elnor cannot imagine where Hugh has learned to kiss this way, so slowly, so thoroughly, and finds himself passively receiving, his face hot with the notion that he would like to be fucked so thoroughly in the same manner, and that he wants Hugh to do it. The words for this can be saved for later because now is not the right time and they have nothing to ease their way, and Elnor learned long ago that certain acts suffer with making do. Instead he presses tighter, legs around Hugh, cock to cock, and matches Hugh’s motion. Elnor thinks only of sensation. Hugh’s hot mouth, strong arms around him, strong hands in his hair and on his skin, the dark night and stars and the sounds of water, the breeze, tiny night creatures. When the kiss ends it is with the soft pressure of Hugh’s lips on his, a rubbing together of noses that makes Elnor laugh.

“You kiss like you have been loved,” Elnor whispers.

Hugh nods. “Once or twice. Long ago.”

“I have yet to find love.”

“You will. Or it will find you. You kiss like you’re looking for it.” Hugh’s words are soft and come from his place of candor that Elnor wants to know. Hugh presses a kiss to Elnor’s forehead and Elnor lowers his head to Hugh’s shoulder to hold the softness.

Elnor touches Hugh’s back again, with fingertips this time, in a long, light caress. There are the scars, circular and puckered, and broad patches of hardened tissue. The central groove that feels nice to touch, where it feels nice to be touched, is both Hugh’s natural human skin and black Borg neuropolymer, partially exposed vertebrae neither bone nor tritanium alone, Hugh’s reclamation process having ceased the conversion. Hugh has told him as much, about removal of exoplating, pharmaceutically initiated rejection of implants, biosynthetic reconstruction, and other medical technology related to reclamation that Elnor has insufficient knowledge to understand. And also that assimilation and transformation of tissues continues to progress through early adulthood of most Borg drones, which he does understand. Elnor is still growing, but he cannot imagine Hugh so young, still a boy. Though here on Nepenthe they are surrounded by people who knew Hugh as such. Who still treat him as such, like a fragile thing, like a child. Hugh is not fragile. And not a child. Neither is Elnor.

As slowly as Elnor’s fingertips move over Hugh’s spine, Hugh’s hand trails down Elnor’s chest to his belly. Hugh’s breath is warm in Elnor’s ear. “May I touch you?” he asks.

Elnor exhales shakily in anticipation, remembering how the night before neither of them had asked. That they’d communicated in silent nods, raggedly panting, clutching each other hungrily in ways that weren’t gentle. And that afterwards they’d held each other with the same desperation as they had on the Artifact, quivering as if they’d run a long way or escaped the same danger. Elnor’s heart hammers now, but the way it races is different and he smiles against Hugh’s cheek when he feels his pulse under Hugh’s palm. “If I may touch you too,” Elnor whispers, already trembling at Hugh’s touch moving to the bend at his hip, as the backs of fingers stroke over the fuzz of sensitive skin between his thighs, as Hugh’s hand closes around his erection with a long, gentle stroke. Elnor shudders with a soft cry and presses his forehead to Hugh’s, breathing in his space. This touch makes him weak, and he welcomes it, reaching down between their bodies.

“Yeah,” Hugh sighs in a long, soft, exquisitely human exhale of pleasure that makes Elnor smile.

For now, hand full of hot, eager flesh, Elnor will spare Hugh the candor of his thoughts about how Hugh is more human in these moments than others. How Hugh is raw and vulnerable, open in a way that most other men Elnor has known are not. Elnor has heard sexual vulnerability combined with emotional inaccessibility described as a moral failing of Terrans, but he cannot agree, for now in this moment, Hugh offers ultimate candor. By nature of who, and what, he is, Hugh is different than other Terrans and his candor is soft. Elnor is certain it is the place where he and Hugh meet.

Their pace of touch is slow and deliberate, in unison, and in opposition to other small rhythmic motions of their bodies. It is broken only for spontaneous kisses, both tender and not so, and Elnor thrills that his own touch can make Hugh’s rhythm, his composure falter. But Hugh’s touch undoes Elnor similarly and takes him to climax. It is quick and sharp and he wants more. He does not need to explain to Hugh that there is no need to wait before starting again, but relishes Hugh’s reverence in this moment as the soft eddies of sensation subside.

“Oh, I want to fuck you.” Hugh’s whisper comes into Elnor’s hair with a kiss to an ear, Hugh’s slicked hand stroking again.

Elnor rolls his forehead at Hugh’s shoulder, relishing the spark of surprise that travels over his skin. He pants with an odd, sweet feeling like elation or laughter. He is unsure of his reaction, but it is what he wants too. To make love. He tightens his hand around Hugh’s erection with a slow, firm squeeze that makes Hugh groan and throw his head back just for a moment.

Then Hugh nods slowly when Elnor begins to smoothly pump his fist again. A grin that Elnor does not know comes across Hugh’s face under the moonlight as their eyes meet. But Elnor likes the ease and provocation because he is safe with Hugh. Elnor smiles too when the hand that Hugh has held at his thigh comes up to cup his face, and when Hugh’s index and middle finger slip into his mouth. Elnor feels his eyes flutter closed and Hughs’s fingers press to the flat of his tongue before slipping out across his lower lip and gently trailing down his chin. He feels Hugh touch the freckle there though it is unseen in the dark.

Elnor answers with a touch to Hugh’s lips. “We must be truly alone together. I did not know you wanted this with me too. It pleases me.”

Hugh nods and kisses Elnor’s fingertips. “But you’ve…” Hugh begins in his gentle way.

It is this gentleness that Elnor feels softest about in this moment. Elnor interrupts with a fervent nod, pressure against Hugh’s lips. They are soft, and the completion of Hugh’s thought is unnecessary.“Yes,” Elnor whispers as he imagines the softness of yielding to Hugh, remembering also the slow, tender, wet slide into Jisit’s body. How good it felt and how he and Jisit laughed when it was over and promised never to do it again because they could not offer each other refuge as mates, though they remained intimate for a summer until Jisit became a Sister at the Eitreih’hveinn when everything changed. Elnor remembers too the different, but easy slide of penetration, both giving and receiving, that comes with trust given or received by another man. How right it felt the very first time to be shared between the aid observer from Bajor and his young Vulcan partner who came for harvest and were both gentle and instructive and spoke the beautiful High Rihan that Elnor hadn’t heard since childhood. The converse of beauty is desolation, and Elnor thinks also of how horribly wrong the overwhelming fullness and vulnerability can feel when there isn’t trust or patience. Elnor learned that specific pain from other young men who struck his eye and were up for a fight, or more, though those risky encounters were equally likely to be pleasurable. With Hugh, Elnor’s trust is implicit. And he knows that Hugh is patient. Now that it is clear their desire is mutual, Elnor is not patient. Were they alone as he wishes in this moment, he would rise onto his knees and slide into Hugh’s lap now to offer himself under the moon and stars, and ask later to sleep in Hugh’s arms the way he lay in Jisit’s without sleeping those weeks they camped under Vashti’s skies. But he and Hugh cannot. It is wrong to pursue each other with such candor when they are guests in someone else’s home.

Elnor feels Hugh’s hand sink into his wet hair at the nape of his neck. Strong fingers move against the tendons that hold his head and the hollows behind his ears at his jaw. He likes Hugh’s touch there. And between his legs. Hugh’s hand moves slowly, steadily, gripping and stroking in a fluid motion that Elnor tries not to think too hard about, lest his answering strokes to Hugh’s cock falter. Elnor concentrates instead on the firmness of Hugh’s thighs against his, the smooth rhythm of elbow and wrist and palm, how Hugh’s soft foreskin slips and glides so like like his own, how Hugh’s shape beneath is different in a way that is intriguing. Elnor longs to see Hugh’s body in the light, for Hugh to see his. Their heads rest together as they did the night before, but it is gentle instead of fierce. Comfortable and warm. There is no slap of flesh, no need to alleviate friction by spitting into a hand. Impulsively, Elnor presses an open-mouthed kiss to Hugh’s neck where he tastes of salt and sun. He wins a hitching of Hugh’s body against him, Hugh’s fingers tightening in his hair. Terran physiology is similar enough to Romulan for Elnor to know that Hugh is close to climax, which Hugh will reach only once. This Elnor does not understand. But there is no time for the softness of Elnor’s indignity on Hugh’s behalf, for in this moment Elnor will offer Hugh the pleasure he deserves in whatever manner he desires.

“Do you want my mouth?” Elnor whispers and kisses again. With Hugh’s salt there is wildness on Elnor’s tongue, and he allows the words to come with as much confidence as candor.“It would please me to do this. I know that it would please you.” A shiver passes over his skin when he feels Hugh’s response, a long exhale, hot against his ear.

Hugh’s hand tightens on Elnor’s cock in a way that makes Elnor gasp and there is a kiss pressed to the hollow of his cheek, and then Hugh’s voice in his ear. “I’m too close to enjoy it the way I want to.”

A smile blooms across Elnor’s face at the notion of being savored. “Then tell me what you want, E’lev.” The word slips from Elnor’s lips before he can stop it. He is warm with it and feels as if he might glow red and hot.

Hugh’s body shakes with a small laugh. “Don’t change a thing,” he whispers. His hand slips from Elnor’s hair and is cool on his hot cheek.

There is a kiss to the corner of Elnor’s mouth that Elnor meets crookedly. It is a small, soft thing before Hugh makes a low sigh of pleasure, his body moving to counter the motion of Elnor’s hand, breath quickening. Elnor feels the throb of Hugh’s orgasm in the strokes Hugh still offers. Hugh’s body flexes with a long tremble of sensation. There is a breathy sound of surrender and the small flood of semen spills over, hot into Elnor’s palm on an achingly slow upstroke. It is over when Hugh’s hand covers Elnor’s, stilling him.

In deference to Hugh, Elnor offers no further touches, desiring only to offer peace in this moment. The grip they maintain on one another binds them together. Only with penetration could it be more intimate. With his hand that is not full, Elnor touches the nape of Hugh’s neck and strokes up through Hugh’s hair, mussing its natural order. Hugh’s hair is like wet fur on his fingers, soft and fine, Hugh’s head a warm weight where it bows against his chest, forehead beneath his collarbone. In their gentle fervor, the night has grown cooler and Elnor relishes the places where his flesh touches Hugh’s, where skin seals to skin with warmth. He curls himself closer, his body folding around Hugh’s smaller form, around shorter and sturdier limbs that feel, to Elnor, neater and more economical than his own expansive frame.

It is to this same tender heat that Elnor yields when Hugh gently guides his hand away from his spent cock and reaches for him, bodily pulling Elnor onto himself as he lies back on the towel lining the pier. Elnor follows, complying with the candor of Hugh’s subtle command. Elnor is struck then, as he cedes to Hugh’s touch and to nature to let his body find its own way, that intimacy is not so different than the dance of combat, though strategy and physics are used to different ends. Elnor is present with both—aware again of the night, the sky above, the sounds of water and trees, the sound of Hugh’s breath, his own, their beat of their hearts, and the strength and solidity of Hugh’s body beneath. These pull at him like a lodestone, pull his hips down to settle between Hugh’s open thighs, pull him thrusting into a rhythm where his cock glides against Hugh’s skin.

“I like to watch your face.” Hugh’s voice is gentle and Elnor arches closer with the motion of Hugh’s fingertips as Hugh reaches to push aside the wet and tangled length of Elnor’s hair. Hugh touches sweetly and surely, the same way in which he speaks, and the raw softness that pulls at Elnor’s heart directs his gaze down to Hugh’s face, framed between his forearms.

Elnor watches moonlight and shadow flicker over Hugh’s features in time with the movement of their bodies. “It is dark and the moons are behind me.”

Hugh looks up and his left eye flashes iridescent and Elnor understands. How much Hugh has seen, can see. Elnor has no words to explain the raw softness that grips his heart and answers with touch instead. He holds his weight on one elbow and tracks his palm over the silvery web of hardened flesh at Hugh’s chest, over his heart. He marvels at how the scars catch the light, how even in the dark, Hugh’s body is beautiful. Hugh smiles, cupping Elnor’s face in his hands and leaning up for a kiss that Elnor is filled with joy to offer. Lips meet and open together, tongues touching hot and wet to move sinuously for a moment until Hugh gently pushes Elnor away. There is a touch to Elnor’s lips, his brow, and Elnor understands this too. Hugh will watch.

Elnor shivers with the slow fire of Hugh’s hands moving down, over his chest in the space between their bodies, around to the sensitive flesh under his arms and down his ribs where the sensation makes his motion falter. Hugh’s fingertips trace his spine from skull to buttocks and delve into the hot crevice before beginning the same long touch anew, starting at his ears this time. He closes his eyes and smiles into the night as Hugh’s twin caresses move down to the small of his back. Elnor is sure it is meant to be something gentle to accent the pleasure of their bodies slowly bucking together in imitation of the way he hopes they will soon join, but Hugh’s fingertips have ventured so close to the place where Elnor is nearly fearful to desire touch. It is a place of such intimacy it has no name in Rihan, though the Vulcans have named it as they name everything. Touch in this place is reserved for love shared with a mate with whom true names are shared. Just as there is no false door to the House of Truth, Elnor’s true name is the one by which Hugh already calls him. If there were another, he would whisper it to Hugh now as he offers this secret.

“Touch me here,” Elnor whispers instead, reaching back to redirect Hugh’s fingertips to the tender swell of glands that lie hidden beneath the smooth skin of his back just above the dimples at his sacrum.

“So it’s true?” Hugh asks softly, his upward gaze gentle and appraising as he offers tentative strokes.

“Yes.” Elnor sucks in a breath at the sudden intensity of sensation that rests on the edge of a blade between pleasure and pain. “Softer,” he begs, hanging his head as his hips find their cadence again to frot fluidly, his erection gliding high on the inside of Hugh’s thigh next to Hugh’s soft cock. So close.

Hugh’s hands rest lightly on the slim frame of Elnor’s hips, fingertips moving lightly, with exquisite sensitivity in ceaseless patience with Elnor’s conflicting direction. At last, slow downward strokes with the heels of Hugh’s hands have Elnor quivering and panting. Elnor ruts dumbly, like a beast as he stares down at Hugh who writhes together with him, looking up with endless kindness to return the softness that Elnor feels at showing himself like this, so nakedly, with such candor. Elnor comes unguardedly, in great stuttering gasps, falling against Hugh with a deep quake of pressure between his legs, then serenity and stillness as his cock twitches and he empties himself hot and sticky between their bellies. Hugh holds him close and kisses his forehead.

“What do you need now?” Hugh’s voice is gentle against Elnor’s ear.

“Nothing but this.” Elnor turns his face into Hugh’s neck and breathes, warm and boneless, enveloped in the embrace of Hugh’s arms and legs.

They lie still for a long while, Elnor’s heart slowing and mind empty, suffused with the same clarity he finds in practicing the physical regimen of The Way.His thoughts are quiet. When at last he shivers in Hugh’s arms and Hugh pulls him closer for want of warmth, Elnor rises. They share a deep, tender kiss and silently gather their things. They walk naked in the shadows back to the house. In the dark, they stand together in the heat of the outdoor shower to rinse off the day, the river, fluids, then re-enter the house, sneaking together up the stairs dressed haphazardly. In the room they have shared in their days on Nepenthe, they find their beds pushed together, made up double. Downstairs there is food, and love, and light, and welcome. In the morning _La Sirena_ will come for them and they will go together with Soji and Picard to Soji’s people. Elnor will keep Hugh safe. He will not fail as _qalankhkai_. Elnor takes Hugh’s hand.


End file.
